King George I - 1714-1727
English Costume History by Dion Clayton Calthrop

This costume history information consists of Pages 406-414 of the chapter on the
early C18th dress in the 13 YEAR REIGN era of King George The First 1714-1727 and taken from English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop.

The 36 page section consists of a text copy of the book ENGLISH
COSTUME PAINTED & DESCRIBED BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP. Visuals,
drawings and painted fashion plates in the book have a charm of their own and are
shown amid the text. The book covers both male and female dress history of
over 700 years spanning the era 1066-1830.
This page is about Early Georgian dress in
the reign of Hanoverian King George I, 1714-1727

GEORGE THE FIRST

We cannot do better than open Thackeray, and put a finger on this
passage:

'There is the Lion's Head, down whose jaws the Spectator's own letters
were passed; and over a great banker's in Fleet Street the effigy of the
wallet, which the founder of the firm bore when he came into London a
country boy. People this street, so ornamented with crowds of swinging
chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, with Mr. Dean in his
cassock, his lacquey marching before him; or Mrs. Dinah in her
sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladyship's great
prayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (I
remember forty years ago, as a boy in London city, a score of cheery,
familiar cries that are silent now).

'Fancy the beaux thronging to the chocolate-houses, tapping their
snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their periwig appearing over the red
curtains. Fancy Saccharissa beckoning and smiling from the upper
windows, and a crowd of soldiers bawling and bustling at the
door - gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet with blue facings,
and laced with gold at the seams; gentlemen of the Horse Grenadiers, in
their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroidered on the front
in gold and silver; men of the Halberdiers, in their long red coats, as
bluff Harry left them, with their ruffs and velvet flat-caps. Perhaps
the King's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pass.'The Four Georges.

We find ourselves, very willingly, discussing the shoes of the King of
France with a crowd of powdered beaux; those shoes the dandyism of
which has never been surpassed, the heels, if you please, painted by Vandermeulen with scenes from Rhenish victories!

Georgian Masks

Or we go to the
toy-shops in Fleet Street, where we may make assignations or buy us a
mask, where loaded dice are slyly handed over the counter.

The Beau

Everywhere - the beau. He rides the world like a cock-horse, or like Og
the giant rode the Ark of Noah, steering it with his feet, getting his
washing for nothing, and his meals passed up to him out by the chimney.

Here is the old soldier begging in his tattered coat of red; here is a
suspicious-looking character with a black patch over his eye; here the
whalebone hoop of a petticoat takes up the way, and above the monstrous
hoop is the tight bodice, and out of that comes the shoulders supporting
the radiant Molly - patches, powder, paint, and smiles.

Here a woman
passes in a Nithsdale hood, covering her from head to foot - this
great cloak with a piquant history of prison-breaking; here, with a
clatter of high red heels, the beau, the everlasting beau, in gold lace,
wide cuffs, full skirts, swinging cane.

A major change has happened with men's periwigs. The great periwig
is going out of fashion, and the looped and curled wig is heavily
whitened with powder. The buckles on the shoes have become larger and
the stockings are simply loosely
rolled above the knee.

There is a curious sameness about the clean-shaven faces surmounted
by white wigs; there is - if we believe the pictures - a tendency to fat due
to the tight waist of the breeches or the buckling of the belts.

The
ladies wear little lace and linen caps, their hair escaping in a ringlet
or so at the side, and flowing down behind, or gathered close up to a
small knob on the head.

Coats

The gentlemen's coats fall in full folds
on either side; the back, at present, has not begun to stick out so
heavily with buckram.

Everywhere we see the skirted coat, the big flapped waistcoat; even
beggar boys, little pot-high urchins, are wearing some old laced
waistcoat tied with string about their middles - a pair of heel-trodden,
buckleless shoes on their feet, more likely bare-footed.

Here is a man
snatched from the tripe-shop in Hanging Sword Alley by the King's men - a
pickpocket, a highwayman, a cut-throat in hiding. He will repent his
jokes on Jack Ketch's kitchen when he feels the lash of the whip on his
naked shoulders as he screams behind the cart-tail; ladies in flowered
hoops will stop to look at him, beaux will lift their quizzing glasses,
a young girl will whisper behind a fan, painted with the loves of
Jove, to a gorgeous young fop in a light-buttoned coat of sky-blue.

There is a sadder sight to come, a cart on the way to Tyburn, a poor
fellow standing by his coffin with a nosegay in his breast; he is full
of Dutch courage, for, as becomes a notorious highwayman, he must show
game before the crowd, so he is full of stum and Yorkshire stingo. Maybe
we stop to see a pirate hanging in chains by the river, and we are
jostled by horse officers and watermen, revenue men and jerkers, and, as
usual, the curious beau, his glass to his eye. Never was such a time for
curiosity: a man is preaching mystic religion; there is a new flavour to
the Rainbow Tavern furmity; there is a fellow who can sew with his toes;
a man is in the pillory for publishing Jacobite ballads - and always there
is the beau looking on.

Country ladies, still in small hoops, even in full dresses
innocent of whalebone, are bewildered by the noise; country gentlemen,
in plain-coloured coats and stout shoes, have come to London on South
Sea Bubble business. They will go to the Fair to see the Harlequin and
Scaramouch dance, they will buy a new perfume at The Civet Cat, and they
will go home - the lady's head full of the new hoop fashion, and she will
cut away the sleeve of her old dress and put in fresh lace; the
gentleman full of curses on tavern bills and the outrageous price of
South Sea shares.

'And what,' says country dame to country dame lately from town - 'what
is the mode in gentlemen's hair?' Her own goodman has an old periwig,
very full, and a small bob for ordinary wear.

'The very full periwig is going out,' our lady assures her; 'a
tied wig is quite the mode, a wig in three queues tied in round bobs, or
in hair loops, and the long single queue wig is coming in rapidly, and
will soon be all the wear.' So, with talk of flowered tabbies and fine lutestring, are the fashions passed on.

In this costume plate of an early Georgian woman its noticeable
that the high fontage headdress has given way to a small lace cap. The
hair is neater and now drawn off the forehead. The hooped skirt is still large.

Just as Sir Roger de Coverley nearly called a young lady in
riding-dress 'sir,' because of the upper half of her body, so the ladies
of this day might well be taken for 'sirs,' with their double-breasted
riding-coats like the men, and their hair in a queue surmounted by a
cocked hat.

Colours and combinations of colours are very striking: petticoats of
black satin covered with large bunches of worked flowers, morning gown
of yellow flowered satin faced with cherry-coloured bands, waistcoats of
one colour with a fringe of another, bird's-eye hoods, bodices covered
with gold lace and embroidered flowers - all these gave a gay, artificial
appearance to the age; but we are to become still more quaintly devised,
still more powdered and patched, in the next reign.

GEORGE THE FIRST

This costume history information consists of Pages 406-414 of the chapter on the
early C18th dress in the 13 YEAR REIGN era of King George The First 1714-1727 and taken from English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop.

The 36 page section consists of a text copy of the book ENGLISH
COSTUME PAINTED & DESCRIBED BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP. Visuals,
drawings and painted fashion plates in the book have a charm of their own and are
shown amid the text. The book covers both male and female dress history of
over 700 years spanning the era 1066-1830.
This page is about Early Georgian dress in
the reign of Hanoverian King George I, 1714-1727

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